Even in Death
by Kindlehope
Summary: When one of them dies, will the other be able to cope-or be driven into insanity? Spiritshipping (JohanxJudai), Japanese names used. Worth the read! Rated T for death and self-injury. Clean language.
1. Chapter 1

_When one of them dies, will the other be able to cope-or be driven into insanity? Spiritshipping (JohanxJudai), Japanese names used. Worth the read!_

If you have never heard the song "Even in Death" by Evanescence, I strongly suggest you listen to it before reading this story. Here is a YouTube link for a video with the lyrics.

watch?v=sTP5Cx4BbZw

This story won't contain all the lyrics in the text, but just the first passage and some of the last.

* * *

_Give me a reason to believe that you're gone…_

Judai huddled on the bed in the corner of his room, knees tucked to his chest with his arms wrapped around them. He gazed, unblinking, into the darkness, wearing the same expression of shock that he had for days. Bags were starting to form under his eyes, and he was pale and sickly-looking. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten, and he certainly hadn't been sleeping well. He couldn't carry on. He had lost all will to survive, and preferred to hiding in his hotel room in the dark, longing to hear a familiar whisper in his ear, assuring him that he would never be alone. But it didn't matter. The voice never came. Still, reassurance or not, Judai knew that somewhere amidst the shadows and shock the tragedy had left behind, Johan's spirit still lingered.

"_Two are injured and one is dead tonight after a vehicle collision near Tokyo Bay, which happened at approximately 10:32 p.m.…eighteen-year-old Johan Andersen, a Scandinavian immigrant who had just recently graduated from Duel Academia, died soon after arriving to the hospital. Yuuki Juudai, also eighteen and a recent Academia graduate, remains in stable condition in the hospital. Police are still investigating the cause of the accident."_

"_Judai…you were both in the accident. But Johan didn't make it…"_

Judai froze at the nurse's words. He had just awakened, and some woman had just told him that he and Johan had been in an accident. He didn't remember much, but he _did_ remember _something_. He remembered lying on a stretcher on the cold asphalt beside Johan, who was also on a stretcher. Judai tilted his head to look at him, at how still he was, and worried. He reached out and touched his hand, trying to comfort him without words, and also to confirm that he wasn't dead. He panicked at the lack of response, but finally, after several seconds, Johan's fingers wrapped around his. He tilted his head as well and looked straight at Judai. He was bleeding from his temple, his neck, his forehead, but he offered Judai a small, kind smile, even as his eyes were wet and his skin was stained red. His hand moved to his waist, and he pulled something off his belt; then he pushed into Judai's grasp and somewhat nodded. Then he closed his eyes, and the distant sirens suddenly rang louder, and four people rushed over and picked Johan up with his stretcher. Judai looked over at him and panicked, reaching out with his hand—but his friend was already gone, and the ambulance pulled away. He then glanced at what he held in his hand and began to cry. It was a leather box the size of a deck of cards, and Johan had given it to him to keep.

There was a cluster of small white candles arranged on the nightstand beside Judai and groups of them in the corners of the room, causing soft amber light to dance across the shadowed white walls. Judai had discovered this the day of Johan's death—he had seen Johan's faint silhouette watching him from the shadows, he himself being only a shadow. That was six days ago, but he had done it every night since then, not only so he could watch for him, but also because he found the candlelight rather therapeutic. It was good to have something to concentrate on.

Silently, Judai waited. He wasn't sure how many minutes passed—minutes, hours, days. He didn't care. He had learned the true meaning of patience one week earlier, at the hospital.

It all went wrong at the hospital.

* * *

**A/N: **I apologize for a short first chapter, but I needed a cliffhanger.

I was horrified when the thought for this entered my mind, but I was excited to make a story out of it. In my mind, I'm handling pure gold here for angst-y Spiritshipping fans, but by _no_ means was this story easy to write. It was hard to put my thoughts into words, and each chapter needed to be revised about three times before I could accept them. And yet, even so, here is the first chapter, still flawed and imperfect.

However, I'm not going to quit. In some morbid way, I enjoy writing this. If readers like this, I'll be posting one chapter each week, so _please_ **review**-a reader's feedback is the only thing that keeps me writing.

Plus, if you review, you get a virtual cupcake. :P

Cheerio!

~Kindlehope


	2. Chapter 2

It's very convenient that I was grounded from the internet the day before I planned to post chapter two. But now I am back, and here it is. Sorry for the wait!

Thank you for the kind reviews from Warriorsstone and TheOneKnownAsA! Here's a note to you, "A": Since you are a guest on this site, I was not able to send you a "thank you" note for your review, but I have _never_ received that sweet of a review in my entire writing life! Your review was the most praise I have ever received in my entire life in _general_, and I thank you profusely—you brought tears of joy to my eyes!

I hope that this chapter does not pale in comparison to chapter one. It is a little less emotionally attached, but I tried to carry on the word choice and writing style from chapter one into this chapter. I hope I won't disappoint you!

* * *

Judai walked down the long, white corridor for what seemed an eternity. His head ached; his breathing was shallow. Eyes wide, he stared at the floor the entire walk to the intensive care room. It was 3:02 a.m.

One minute, one day, one year later, his feet stopped him at a wide white door. A sign beside it read, "32A".

Johan's room.

Judai's hand curled around the doorknob and rested there for several seconds, so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Then he shakily opened the door. A white room with blue countertops opened up before him.

For being an intensive care room, nothing seemed to be happening. No doctors moved about. No nurses rushed to get medicine or surgical tools. The room was completely silent. He and Johan had only been in the hospital for one night. He wasn't even supposed to be around.

One lone nurse, whose features Judai would later be unable to recall, stood at the window, gazing out. Her eyes shifted toward him; tears glittered there like stars against a night sky, as though _she_ were the one who had lost a loved one. The emotion infuriated him.

"Are you Yuuki Juudai?" she whispered after a moment.

He stared blankly back at her. He didn't know—_was_ he? Was he really the one experiencing all this? He only hoped that he wasn't summoned here for the reason he was dreading.

She sighed. "Of course you are." She observed him sadly and motioned with her hand to her left. "Johan…he's over there."

Judai slowly turned his head toward a hospital bed beside a counter. A boy laid there, his legs, torso, and shoulders covered by a white sheet. His head rested on a pillow. His eyes were closed.

Asleep.

Judai's heart jumped. He stepped over to the bed and stared at the boy lying there. He reached out to touch his sleeping friend, wanting to wake him.

His fingers met the face of a cold, motionless Johan, and Judai froze.

_Dead._

"We did everything we could." The nurse suddenly stood beside him. "But…he was already gone. I'm so sorry."

Somewhere in his voice, Judai detected sympathy. But he just as quickly doubted it. Sympathy? In such a cruel, heartless world? Impossible.

It couldn't have been real.

Rage flared in Judai's heart—such a deep, sudden rage that he couldn't stop it from consuming him. He felt hatred, kindled by pain and loss. He glared at the nurse, his eyes burning what he knew as a fiery golden shade.

"If you had done all you could," he hissed, "then my friend would not be dead."

The woman stumbled back, fear in her eyes.

"Leave," Judai spat. "_Now_."

She didn't argue. She didn't even hesitated. She just turned and ran out the door. Somehow, Judai drew a strong satisfaction from it. But it soon dissipated to grief as he turned back to his friend.

Johan shouldn't have been dead. It was all their fault…

Judai spent the rest of the night in the room, settled on the edge of the hospital bed and stroking Johan's cheekbone. His eyes, their normal shade of brown again, searched for any signs of movement. But much as he hoped and pleaded for them, they never came.

He had already mistaken his own breathing for Johan's. He had already imagined the smallest hint of a smile flicker over Johan's face. He had already thought he'd seen movement. But once he realized they were only illusions, his heart gave in. He mourned over the words he finally had to tell himself.

_Johan is dead._

Another nurse had come to replace the first, standing by the same window. A look of heartbreak masked her doe-like face, but fear flickered in her eyes—clearly she had been told that this by was not one to be bothered. It was a full hour before she finally spoke.

"He was your best friend, wasn't he?"

"He _is_," Judai replied harshly. "_Is_. Not 'was'."

She fell silent, recognizing her mistake.

"He's like a brother to me," Judai admitted. "Almost more, if there _is_ a 'more'…"

The nurse was quiet. She remained in the room, as Judai stroked Johan's hair, until the first light of dawn struck the window. She then told him that he would have to leave, so he refused. She persisted, but to no avail. His time with Johan, it seemed, had been too short. He had only known him a little over two years, some of which Judai had spent as Haou, searching for Johan, and in the stars after fusing with Yubel. Now, he could stay forever in the hospital room, just refusing to leave him. His parents were eventually called into the room to take him away, which infuriated him. Parents, whom he had grown up hardly knowing, now called to usher him away from the one person who truly _understood_ him—something that _parents_ were meant to do? He fell into tears and tried to yank from their grasps, frantic, panicked, but helpless against their grips. He was then shooed out of the room. He dragged his feet, wanting only to stay; tears rushed down his cheeks, and he kept glancing down the hall, wishing he would hear a doctor suddenly yell for joy and then see Johan running down the hall to give him a hug. But a sense of cold and stillness hung in the air, and all was silent.

Johan was gone.

* * *

A/N: This chapter goes off the idea that Judai didn't know his parents well. Also, I realize that I have not yet mentioned what really killed Johan. That comes in the next chapter, which I will try to post next week. I also realize that my sentences are extremely long, quite like Edgar Allen Poe's. I hope they don't confuse you. Please review this chapter and await the next!


End file.
